Try to pick one vehicle to trade and get the feel of it. Bouncing around without having the feel for different markets will end up eating your lunch, IMO.
I agree with Holy Grail. Your Journal is called Blubaru's YM Trading Journal but by the 3rd and 4th page your trading the Hang Seng using 3 cars? Set your rules and stick with them. I would suggest you stay with the YM, limit yourself to one contract. and if you increase your account by x amount (for example from 10,000 to 15,000), increase your contract size. Quick buck artists come and go, but its the steady players that make through all types of markets. Once you have a profitable strategy in place, then you can go after other indices like the ES, NQ and ER2. Good luck and happy trading!
yeah guys, i'm completely a newbie here. i'm here to make a buck now, i got bills to pay, but im also in it for the long run. even if i go bust now ill still come back to the markets. i've been trading stocks since 14 and i'm pretty obsessed with the markets right now, which is why i dipped into the asian markets late at night. tokyoghetto: i meant to say i traded the HSI the previous night. the 3 cars were for the ym today. i'm sticking to the YM and perhaps the sgxnk. the hsi moves too quickly for me. i was about to wake up at 1am last night to revenge trade my money back, but my senses snapped back and i didn't go for it. im gonna paper trade it for now.
get a stack of quarters or $100 dollar bills, and put them on your desk,16 would equal $400. your risk fo r the day,when you win $25 put one quarter to the right, lose same on left, now u have a visual of real money ,not play money,and maybe you'll stop gambling or being an action junky, this is a real business,with real dollars, and to stay in business u have to make money on top of paying your bills, funny thing about money, if you dont manage yours, there is always someone there that will do it for u
2nd week done. Man it was quite a ride this week, I learned quite alot more this week than last. Definitely NOT touching the Hang Seng until I watch it for a few months and paper trade it a while. Slowly learning to spot different trends, when to stay out of the market, when to go in, when to take risks, implementing stops, staying out from 11ish to 1ish, still trying to learn how to trade the opening and closing hours. Felt angry as hell at the markets on Wednesday and Thursday as seen below. My mind was feeling numb as I was trading 2-3 cars all day Thursday and crazily trading my way back to break even. I really hope I won't see another trading day like that for a while. Today, I had a super tough time finding entry points, finished out +130.18 after 7 r/t's. Got out of my short with abt 20pts, 15 minutes before the Ambac rally (PHEW). Traded completely stress-free today, using more stops, and really trying not to chase the market anymore. P/L 1st week: -926.14 2nd week: +942.59 Mon: +261.21 Tues: +182.22 Wed: -1100 Thurs: +800 Fri: +130.18 Total commissions: 707.85 Current/Starting: 10,016.45/10,000.00 I'm pretty sure I'm trading way too much =( Game plan for next week: more stop usage, limiting my trades to hopefully around 3 or 4 a day, waiting for signals, and keeping out of the markets during lunchtime until i study it in further detail. thanks ahead for any feedback
really picking my spots today. did 3 trades. almost took a trade at 11:10 to go long on a pull back, but decided to stay out from now on at 11pm. good thing it pulled back even more. Short 1 @ 12422 Stopped @ 12437 Short 1 @ 12422 Short 1 @ 12453 <-- accidental short instead of long Close @ 12441 Long 2 @ 12451 Close @ 12479 up abt 150 bucks.
that triangle we are in is so narrow,we could blast out of it either way, so those stops u r using will b very useful if we break out and u happen to b wrong,keep using them,seems like u r workin more on discipline than profit,crawl before u walk theory, smart ,keep it up. Stay in business and you will b there when the opportunities arrive. Are u sing any charts for indicators or trading on feel?
Yeah, discipline is the hardest part right now, im so interested in trading it's all i want to do. Still finding myself impulse trading a little bit. Here's a screenshot of my "workstation" if you could call it that, mainly use the stoch reading and the 14-day sma for signals. And using the general trend established from the first hour of trading to try to get in that direction. My trades are very limited now as the lunch hours from 11-2 seem to be off limits for now atleast. I may trade 1 car tomorrow during lunch. End of the day isn't much easier to trade than lunch so far. 9 RTs today, +140
i traded twice in last half hour and got burned, break down in discipline, read 1st 30 or so pages of es journal, i read up until apr 14 or so,the guys on there with buy1sell2 defined a good months worth of trades,get a real feel for discipline and reasons to trade and reasons to take losses, keep studying, 140 a day is 700 a week ,pretty good money for studying. These are really tough trading days with these anouncements coming up all the time,so stay nimble and the money will come, be patient, keep up the good work
Blubaru Just read your journal. Looks great so far and I wish you the very best. From reading your journal it seems you have a lot of the same problems I had when first testing the waters with intra day trading. Overtrading Always wanting to play the game Overtrading will kill you. I remember last year or maybe the year before I opened up my first account to test out day trading (its a lot more exciting than position trading lol). So I opened up my account and started trading crude (first mistake). I think it took over a grand from me and I only started trading the damn thing an hour ago lol! Sadly it took me a long time to realize this. You aren't watching the orderbook are you? If you are I would recommend staying away from it until you figure out how to use it. It can be a very useful tool (some of my best trades come from stictly the orderbook) but it can also cause you to severely overtrade. Also like previously mentioned make sure you are not trading such a short time frame because it will cause you to overtrade and the faster the time frame the higher the emotions get imo. Also try tick charts instead of min charts, I really like the way they look, they appear smoother for some reason. Always wanting to trade is still something I have trouble with. I keep wanting to play the game at all hours of the day. This can be hard on a guy physically and mentally so even though its hard we have to remember to take breaks and step back from the market sometimes. Im just a newbie myself really in the world of intra day trading but I wish you the best and will be following along in your journal religiously. Good Trading